Jabbed – Love, Fear and Vaccines

(Genepool Productions, 2013)

To vaccinate, or not? What would you do to protect the ones you love?

Diseases that were largely eradicated forty years ago are returning. Across the world children are getting sick and dying from preventable conditions because nervous parents are skipping their children’s shots. And it’s not just kids: adults, too, are being hard hit. Yet the stories of vaccine reactions are frightening, with rare cases of people being damaged, even killed, by vaccines. How do we decide whether to vaccinate or not, and what are the real risks? JABBED, made by 2012 Emmy Award-winning Australian documentary filmmaker Sonya Pemberton, travels the globe to look at the real science behind vaccinations, tracks real epidemics, and investigates the real cost of opting out. Talking with vaccine-makers, alternative healers, psychologists, anthropologists, and parents, the film posing the potent question: what would you do to protect the ones you love? Two years in the making JABBED will confound your expectations, whatever your position on the most important and divisive public health question of the decade.

“JABBED is a thrilling ride through the turbulent vaccine debate that has caused some parents to refuse vaccines for their children. The movie walks a careful line by at once showing the anguish of parents confronted with the choice of injecting a biological fluid into their children’s arms and the science that supports vaccines as the right thing to do. The movie also shows what can happen–and what is happening–to communities that now suffer outbreaks of diseases like measles and whooping cough because too many people are more frightened of vaccines than the diseases they prevent.”
Dr Paul Offit, USA

“A refreshingly well balanced and informative look at vaccination. ‘JABBED’ doesn’t’ shy from the small risks of serious complications following immunisation, yet clearly highlights these risks are minor when compared to the risks of living in an under-vaccinated community. I hope that every parent facing a decision about whether to vaccinate their children will take the time to watch this, and think it through.”
Professor Ian Frazer, Australia